


Drawing Conclusions

by CallMeBombshell



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-17
Updated: 2011-02-17
Packaged: 2017-10-15 17:47:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/163288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CallMeBombshell/pseuds/CallMeBombshell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the Inception Kink Meme prompt: While Eames is under, Arthur draws on his face with a permanent marker.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Drawing Conclusions

It's not like Arthur particularly has a habit of vandalising other people. He's not like Ariadne, who has a habit of doodling mazes on the backs of her hands when she's bored; lately she's even taken to doodling on the rest of them when she gets so bored that she covers her entire arms in labyrinths and has no more space left. But Arthur's respectful of others, after all (well, mostly, anyway), and drawing on other people's skin has always struck him as particularly juvenile. 

But, he supposes, he really can't be blames for this one. Eames  _does_  have a tendency to bring out the petulant, irritated child in him, and he's been more irritating than usual lately. Yusuf's been using Arthur to test the sedative compound they'll need to use for the Fischer job, which means Arthur's been spending a lot of time toppling out of chairs to land in an undignified heap on the floor. And every time, without fail, he looks up to see Eames standing over him, laughing and grinning and not bothering to hide the mirth making tears spring up in his eyes as he tries not to laugh too hard.

They've only got a few days before Fischer is scheduled to make his regular flight from Sydney to LA, and they've finally worked out the majority of the details, much to Arthur's relief. All they're doing now is making practise runs. Ariadne has been taking them all aside one by one, making sure they all know the details of the levels they'll be dreaming. Arthur's been keeping a close eye on Fischer, just in case anything unexpected happens and they need to move sooner. Yusuf has finally stamped his approval on the exact blend they'll need for the dream (Arthur resists the urge to hug Yusuf when he tells them this; he's gotten quite tired of being pushed out of chairs). Eames has spent the last few days perfecting his impersonation of Browning, going under by himself where he can practise without distraction.

This is how Arthur finds him one afternoon, lying out on one of the lawn chairs, IV stuck into the back of his hand, dreaming away. His sleeves are rolled up, and Arthur can see where Ariadne took advantage of Eames' unmoving state to vent some of her anxiety in the form of a large, twisting maze which snakes down Eames' arm in careful black ink from elbow to wrist, curling over the back of his hand. There are other lines tracing the maze, Ysusf's favoured red marker, where the chemist had clearly tried to solve the maze, apparently in a similar fit of boredom.

Arthur stares down at the spidery lines of ink and feels a smirk twisting his lips up, an idea forming in his head. He glances carefully around the warehouse. Ariadne is across the room, perched in her chair in the middle of a semi-circle of tables, all covered in models and sketches, completely engrossed in her work. Yusuf is similarly engaged in an opposite corner, eyes fixed on a beaker as he carefully mixes up chemicals, creating the larger doses of the compound that they’ll need for the job. Arthur can’t see Cobb, but there’s a light on around the corner where he’s set up his desk and Arthur can hear the sound of papers being shuffled around. 

Arthur smirks fully, crossing quietly to his desk and reaching for the black marker he’d been using earlier. He crosses back to where Eames is lying, casts a quick look around to make sure he’s still unnoticed, and kneels down, leaning over Eames.

The moustache is the first thing he draws, big and curling and absurd across his upper lip; he draws it because it’s tradition, of course, and because it looks funny (and if it disguises the moustache that Eames already has, neatly trimmed and framing his mouth in a way that Arthur privately thinks is rather perfect, well, no one else needs to know). 

He adds a goatee, sharp and pointy, scribbled across his chin, the sort of goatee people liked to put on Satan in cartoons. He thinks it rather completes the look; it certainly compliments Eames’ devilish personality, Arthur thinks. He seems too disarmingly charming without it.

The googly eyes drawn on Eames’ eyelids next are just for fun, since they’re likely to be the last thing noticed, but it’s too good an opportunity to miss, Eames’ eyes, for once, closed and not staring at him, dancing with laughter. 

Arthur debates adding glasses, big and round and dorky around Eames’ eyes, but decides against it. Eames is already going to kill him when he inevitably figures out who’s disfigured him; best not to push it and send Eames into a homicidal rage over being turned into a living version of the class nerd’s defaced high school yearbook photo.

Smirking, he draws back, capping the marker and rising to his feet. He takes a final survey of his handiwork (and resists the urge to take a picture with his phone; incriminating evidence and all that) and crosses the room to his desk again. The marker he drops onto an unused desk, the one they use as a table when they get the whole team together to touch base. No one particularly uses it, which means no one will know who the marker belongs to. Arthur smirks again, settling into his chair and carefully not looking back at Eames, and goes back to perusing his files.

Eames finally wakes twenty minutes later, showing his usual impeccable timing in being just in time for a meal, as Ariadne make her way over, waving a takeout menu for a local Chinese place and complaining loudly about being hungry.

“Sounds like a lovely idea,” Eames says agreeably, sitting up and stretching his arms above his head. 

Ariadne is looking over the menu. “What would you-- mmmph!” 

Arthur looks up in time to see Ariadne glance at Eames, clapping a hand over her mouth to cover her laugh, her eyes bugging out slightly. Eames pauses, one eyebrow raised, slowly lowering his arms. Ariadne takes a deep breath, apparently recovering, but Arthur can see the way her mouth still twists up at the corners. 

“What would you like?” she tries again; Arthur sees the way she’s carefully avoiding looking right at Eames, who rolls his eyes and tell her he’ll take anything with beef. Ariadne turns to Arthur, eyes widening as if to say, What? Arthur shakes his head and shrugs his shoulders up an inch: No idea. Ariadne represses another laugh; Arthur looks down, careful to keep his eyes largely on his desk for fear of bursting out laughing if he looks at Eames.

“Arthur?” Ariadne asks, flapping the menu at him.

“Chicken lo mein,” he tells her without looking up, and knows she’s rolling her eyes. As if he ever orders anything different.

Yusuf chooses that moment to wander over, lured away from his chemicals by the promise of large quantities of fast food. 

“Grab me some mu-shu pork!” he calls to Ariadne, who produces a pen and jots his order down next to the others’ on the menu. He turns to nod at Eames, mouth open, presumably to ask how things had gone, and then does a double-take, turning fully to stare at the forger. He quickly stifles a laugh, then appears to reconsider and laughs outright. Eames frowns, now looking between the three of them. 

“What’s so bloody funny?”

“I was about to ask the same--” 

Arthur turns at the sound of Cobb’s voice. He’s standing just beyond Arthur’s desk, having apparently been roused from his brooding by the noise they were making. He stares at Eames blankly, blinking at the other man.

“Ah,” he says. “I see. Well.” His eyebrows rise briefly, apparently bemused. He shoots Eames another carefully blank glance before turning to Ariadne. “Now,” he says, did someone say something about food?”

Ariadne proffers the menu for Cobb to look over just as Eames stands, now eyeing them all with no small degree of suspicion. 

“Alright you lot,” he says, eyebrows drawing even closer together. “What the bloody hell is so damned funny?”

Yusuf snorts out a laugh while Ariadne turns away, her own laugh coming as a sort of squeak when she claps her hands over her mouth; Arthur himself turns away, pressing his fist to his mouth, because if he starts laughing now, he’s not sure he’ll be able to stop. Cobb, for his part, just stands there, blank expression still on his face.

“It’s nothing,” he says. “You’ve just got...” he gestures vaguely at Eames’ face, shrugging.

Eames shoots him a suspicious look, edging slowly toward the bathroom around the corner. They hear him open the door and flick on the lights, and Arthur counts silently in his head.

 _Three... two... one..._

“What the fuck?!”

Eames’ voice echoes off the tiles, bouncing back the them, baffled and outraged. 

“Seriously,” he yells, and they hear the sound of the tap being violently flicked on, water splashing in the sink as Eames presumably tries to wash the marker off his face. “What the bloody fucking hell!”

Arthur doesn’t realise he’s started laughing until he slumps into his chair, his sides shaking and his hand pressed against his mouth as he tries to stifle the laughter threatening to erupt from his chest. Cobb raises one eyebrow at him as Ariadne looks back and forth from the bathroom to Arthur, eyes popping as she puts two and two together, and then she’s off as well, legs crumpling under her as her mirth gets the better of her. Yusuf just grins widely and stretches out a fist, punching Arthur lightly on the shoulder.

Eames stalks back around the corner, hair dark and wet where he’s pushed it out of his face, wiping his face with a towel. “Which of you bloody twats--” he growls, then stops short at the sight of Arthur, now bent over double in his chair, head in his hands as he tries to stop laughing. 

“Arthur,” Eames says, low and growling. “Arthur, you utter fucking bastard, did you do this?!” He takes a step forward, brandishing the towel, streaked with black where he’s managed to rub the marker off his skin.

Arthur can’t help it. He throws his head back, laughing so hard he’s not certain how he’s even able to breathe. 

“You bloody did, didn’t you!” Eames shouts at him, indignant, and Arthur laughs so hard his chair tips backwards and he finds himself on the ground again. He finds he’s laughing too hard to even care, this time.

“Oh for the love of God,” Eames mutters testily, and Arthur manages to calm down enough to sit up. Eames is glaring at him, so Arthur gives him a cheeky smile from his spot on the floor. Eames sighs, closing his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose. 

The googly eyes are still on his eyelids.

Ariadne loses it when she sees, laughing hard enough to send her to the floor along with Arthur. even Cobb lets out a tiny, muffled bark of laughter, covering it almost instantly, but the damage is done as Eames throws his hands in the air and stalks off, muttering angrily about stupid stick-in-the-mud point men and their stupid senses of humour.

Arthur turns back to the rest of the group. Cobb just rolls his eyes, heading back to his office. Ariadne stares at him, hiccupping, and shakes her head, apparently too amused for words. Yusuf grins even wider and claps his hands slowly. 

“Well played, Arthur,” he says, “Excellent show.”

So Arthur does the only thing he can think of and picks himself up off the ground, sweeping a bow in Yusuf’s direction. 

“Thank you,” he says, grinning. “Now wait till you see the encore.”


End file.
